Working with Boards to Transform Student Outcomes - Catapult MasterClass
I've been a school board member for 15 years. I've served as president of a statewide association, done work with national board leadership organizations, and spent years training board members on leadership and development.
And the question I get asked most often — by administrators, by board members, by system leaders — is some version of this: why is this so hard when everyone says they're here for the kids?
Here's the honest answer: governance is designed to slow decisions down, manage risk, and protect long-term trust. Leadership is designed to move systems forward. Neither of those is wrong. But when they aren't well understood, even well-intended people end up working at cross purposes.
That's what my new Catapult Masterclass, Partner with Board Members to Transform Student Outcomes, is built to address. This isn't a technical training on bylaws or compliance procedure. It's a leadership class — for board members, administrators, workforce leaders, and anyone whose decisions shape student outcomes.
Here's what I cover:
The research foundation — what the Wallace Foundation and the Iowa Lighthouse Study tell us about the conditions that actually transform student outcomes, and what boards specifically must do to create them
Technical vs. adaptive leadership — the most important diagnostic I know for understanding what kind of problem you're actually facing in the boardroom, and what kind of leadership it requires
Discussion vs. dialogue — two types of conversation every governance team needs, and why most boards are using one when they need the other
The relational foundation — the single most immediate thing anyone can do to improve their board relationships, starting today
I built this masterclass around the advice I would give my younger self — the models, the frameworks, the research, and the hard-won lessons that I've seen actually lead to transformation.
To lead people, you love people. To save people, you serve people. That's what this work is about.
👉 Watch now: catapultmasterclass.com
I'd love to hear what you're navigating in your own board relationships — feel free to reachout.
